


A Really, Really Big Favor

by TimeCloneMike



Series: Don't Trust The Flower [7]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alphys and Undyne have a kid, BEEEEES! The Musical, But everyone needs a break down and then, Chara Has Their Own Body, Cold Weather, Ebott's Wake AU, Gen, He's Father of the Year material, Including Burgerpants, So do a few other characters, Spoilers For Ebott's Wake, Spoilers for Legacy of the Magi, The Tourism Board makes everything worse YET AGAIN, Unexpected Psychological Issues, adventures in babysitting, dimensional rifts, time skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 17:36:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16877265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeCloneMike/pseuds/TimeCloneMike
Summary: December 5th, 2018, in Ebott's Wake.Asriel receives a phone call of great importance, one that leads to him facing the greatest challenge of his life:Babysitting for Alphys and Undyne.





	A Really, Really Big Favor

Asriel’s phone buzzed on the dresser, and repeated itself several times before he was able to reach it and answer.

“Hello?”

“Uh. Uhm. Asriel?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Is something wrong Alphys?”

“N-n-n-no! Uh. Yes. No. Yes? Yes, but it’s not that b-b-big a deal. Maybe?”

Asriel reached up to rub one of his horn nubs.

“Can I ask what the problem is?”

“Uh. Yes! Yes. Yes, that’s actually why I c-called. Uh. You know how Undyne and I were planning to go see the last run of BEEEEES! the Musical? Well. Our sitter canceled. Because she got tickets too. And we’re, uh. We’re running out of options here, and Levi really likes you, and-”

“I’ll do it. I still gotta fuflill that oath of vengeance where I teach her all the swear words I know.”

“Ahehehehe… I was afraid you’d say that. But I’m glad you said yes. The show doesn’t start until six so you have at least an hour and a half to get over here, so we can go through everything and, and, Undyne says I’m rambling so I’m going to hang up now.”

“Okay. I’ll see you soon!”

Asriel hung up and slipped the phone into his pocket, then turned back to his bed; textbooks and papers were stacked and organized, slipped into a green backpack, and zipped up.

There was a knock on the door, and Asriel’s eyes darted around looking for details that Toriel would frown at, from dirty clothing on the floor to a pile of books to a half finished sandwich on the chest of drawers next to a faded blue ribbon won in a gardening contest under very peculiar circumstances.

“Just a second!”

“It’s me, bro.”

“Oh.” Asriel let himself relax slightly. “Come on in.”

The door opened and a familiar figure entered topped by a rat’s nest of hair, a figure that dropped a yellow backpack by a desk cluttered with electronics and papers, and made a beeline straight for another bed. Asriel flinched as the figure flopped over directly onto the bed without moving any of the books stacked on it.

“...I did not think this through.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Bad day at school, or the lab, or in general?”

“The Lab. Somebody kept trying to… I can’t believe I am using this term now, but somebody tried to Humansplain magic to me.” Frisk rolled over, dislodging both the glasses on their face and one of the books underneath them. “Light Cones are not an actual thing. They are an abstraction of a four dimensional model of space with time being represented as a physical dimension of space for ease of reference. It’s not actually a dimension in space! I bet he thinks there are actual latitude and longitude lines on the surface of the planet too!”

“...you mean there aren’t?”

“AAAAAAGH. I’m _sorry_ for all of the puns over the last few years, _please_ stop making those kinds of jokes.” One hand came up and re-arranged Frisk’s glasses to their nominal position. “Do you have any idea what dinner is going to be? Mom and Dad are going to that musical thing, so it looks like we’re on our own.”

“Actually you and Chara need to work that out. Alphys literally called just before you walked in and asked me to watch Levi. They had a sitter, but the sitter got tickets too? Or something?”

“Oh. Well. Guess I better go see what they’re keen on.” Frisk pushed themselves upright and headed for the door. Asriel grabbed a keyring off of the top of his chest of drawers, stuffed them in another pocket, and followed with his backpack slung over one shoulder.

Down the hall, Asriel saw Frisk raise a hand to knock on Chara’s door, then pull back abruptly as the door opened as he approached.

“Oh. Hey Frisk. Did you need something?”

“Yeah. With Mom and Dad going to the musical, we’re on our own for dinner, so I was wondering if you had any preferences.”

Chara shook their head.

“Don’t worry about me. I just got a call from Dogamy. The babysitter they had watching Doge bailed on them after getting tickets.”

Frisk blinked.

“Tickets… to BEEEES! The Musical?”

“Yeah.” Chara held up their phone, screen turned so that Frisk and Asriel could see some sort of social media notification. “There was a giveaway promoted by the tourism board, but instead of having like a pair of tickets for one prize, each prize is a ticket.”

Frisk pushed their glasses up closer to their eyes.

“That is… _not_ terrible, compared to some of their other screw ups this year.”

“I dunno,” Asriel interrupted. “Those guys are STILL using that old picture of me despite my repeated requests not to. I don’t really feel up to giving them the benefit of the doubt until that changes. And this definitely explains why Alphys called me just now, because her babysitter said the same thing.”

Chara shoved their phone into one pocket and closed the door behind them. “Looks like it’s just you, Frisk.”

“I’ll try to manage-”

There was a beeping sound from Frisk’s pocket, and the human child looked back and forth at the two monsters.

“Who wants to bet it’s Dr. Aster needing somebody to watch Gary?”

Asriel shrugged, and Chara nodded, grinning slightly. “That sounds about right.”

Frisk pulled their phone out, unlocked it, and answered.

“Hello, you’ve reached the phone of Irritated Aspiring Scientist Frisk Dreemurr. How may I direct your call?”

“Hey little buddy, how’s it going?”

“Hey! How are you doing?”

“Well, it was going great up until a few minutes ago. You see, Lindsey and me, we were gonna go see that musical thing-”

“And your babysitter called and canceled on you, right?”

“...wow. You are good.”

“Asriel and Chara both got called up for the same thing just a little bit ago. It was a logical inference.”

“I… think I know what those words mean. So, uh. Can you help us out, watch Katy for the night?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thanks a million little buddy-”

“Buuuut.”

There was a pause on the other end of the phone line, and Asriel and Chara turned to look at each other. Asriel held up his paws to spell out the letters **M** , **A** , and **H** , which prompted Chara to narrow their eyes in confusion.

“...I know exactly what you are about to ask me and you and I both know that your mom is going to kill me if I agree to this.”

“My mom, while very well meaning, is over-protective in the extreme, especially after insane cultists tried to kill me multiple times. You guys are not insane cultists. Besides, if it’s a night Officer Steve is there, it might actually be the safest card game in town.”

“That is not a thing that gets measured and standardized, not even in Ebott’s Wake. Can I please persuade you to take any amount of Dollars or Gild in exchange.”

“I promise mom will never find out.”

“The queen always finds out.”

“Not everything. Take it from someone who lives in the same house.”

“...you really aren’t going to back down on this, are you. _Okay_. You can come to the next game of Monsters Against Humanity. But if the queen kills me, _you_ have to take my place as Katy’s father and raise her as your own.”

“YES! Thank you! I’ll be right over as soon as I can!” Frisk ended the call, put their phone back in their pocket, and turned to look at their siblings. “So it looks like nobody needs to worry about dinner tonight… what are you guys doing?”

“Asriel is busy not remembering that I don’t know sign language.”

Asriel snorted.

“This is why I asked if you wanted to join me for the lessons at the Librarby. It was for exactly this situation.”

“You only wanted to learn when you learned that Hal Greene knew sign language and you wanted to follow in his footsteps.”

“That is...” Asriel held up one finger, then lowered it again. “Well actually that _is_ true.”

 

When the knock at the front door came, Alphys flinched hard enough to knock a pillow off of the sofa with her tail. Undyne laughed, picked up the pillow, tossed it to Alphys, and walked over to open the door. On the other side was a figure bundled up in a thick jacket, oddly shaped snow boots, and a long scarf wrapped around its neck and head.

“Hey Asriel! There you are, we were starting to get worried! The paper said there was a bad chance of dimensional rifts this week.”

“Yeah, I saw.” Asriel walked into the house, unwrapping his scarf and opening his coat. “There were some weird people lined up at one of the waystations on the way here.”

Alphys almost shot up from the sofa, resulting in an annoyed squawk from the small, scaly figure wrapped in her arms. “Oh! Oh no. Sorry Levi, I got, I was, I’ve been nervous.”

“I didn’t mean to make you guys wait so long.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine, I’m just a bundle of nerves and so on.” Alphys walked over to Asriel and slowly, carefully, unwrapped her arms, until she was holding out a green amphibious monster that almost resembled an axolotl if not for the pattern of its scales, dressed in a onesie that said _“Never Skip Leg Day”_ on the front. Slowly, Asriel held out his arms and accepted the child’s weight, staring back at deep black eyes.

“Hey, Levi. How have you been, huh? It’s been a while.”

Levi blinked her eyes slowly, and made some sort of unintelligible sound.

Undyne grinned. “Aw, she remembers you!”

“Uhm. Uh. Levi’s food is on the table in the kitchen. You can help yourself to anything in the fridge, and uh, I put some anime DVDs you might like out if you wanted to watch them. Also I think it calms down Levi when we have them playing.”

“Yeah, at this rate, she’ll say her first word in Japanese instead of English.”

“Subs are always superior to dubs!” Alphys retorted almost instantly, and Undyne cackled as she passed Alphys her own coat. The two monsters were bundled up within seconds.

“Good night Levi! We’ll be back soon! Be good for Asriel!” Alphys’ last admonishment towards he daughter was followed by the door closing, and Asriel looked down at Levi, who was still staring at the door and making slightly distressed noises after her parents had vanished.

“I know the feeling. Well, sort of. It’s complicated.”

 

Chara sat on the floor next to the dog monster puppy, running their fingers through her fur, over and over. Even with one of Dogaressa’s hoods to lie on, being surrounded by her scent, Doge had been crying ever since her parents left the house. Only constant petting seemed to calm her down.

“...I did not expect this when I agreed to this job.” Chara reached up with their free hand and wiped at their eyes. “But really, nothing in my life has ever gone how I expected.”

Doge whined, and Chara paused for a moment, then reached over and picked up the puppy, complete with robe and started rocking back and forth, slowly.

“I remember when Jordan and Elizabeth would leave me at home. Not for musicals or dinners or stuff like that. I don’t think. It was probably cult business. First few times it happened. I couldn’t stop crying. And I got… I got yelled at, for being a whining little kid, when they got home. They told me to act my age.” Chara sniffed. “It took me so long to realize that I was. And later. I was just glad to have some time away from them. But I never stopped wondering. What would happen if this time was the last time. If I’d starve to death or freeze out on the streets or if somebody would take me in. And if somebody did, what would happen if they were worse than Jordan and Elizabeth.”

Doge whined again, and Chara scratched her behind the ears.

“It’s okay. Your mom and dad will be back. They just went to see a bunch of actors run around on stage screaming about bees for a few hours. Just a perfectly normal date night in Ebott’s Wake. You’ll see when you get older.”

The living room was silent except for the alternating ticks and tocks of an old analog clock on the wall. Chara shifted their legs and sniffed again.

“I was an idiot. I wish… I wish I could say it was because I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know what love was, so I didn’t recognize it when I saw it. But… I did. I knew what love was. I just… didn’t know that it could be unconditional. I thought. After what happened to Asgore. I had lost it forever. And everything I did to try to make up for that, it just made things worse.”

Chara looked down at the puppy in their arms and tried to smile.

“I’m sorry, I’ve been monopolizing the conversation. Then again, you can’t talk yet. And when you do, I hope you’ll keep what I just said in confidence.” Chara sniffed again. “Usually when I break down like that. It’s with my brother or sister. I can’t talk to a therapist. Not even a monster one. And I’m rambling, sorry-”

Chara stopped talking abruptly as they realized that Doge had fallen asleep. Some sort of combination of petting, rocking, the scent from Dogaressa’s robe and the vibrations from Chara’s voice had lulled the monster to sleep.

“...good dog.”

 

Levi’s eyes stared at the TV screen as it flashed through various images of Japanese schoolchildren with features that looked more like those on monsters than humans. One green haired child who was often wearing red boots showed up on screen again, and Levi made an excited burbling noise in her throat.

“Yeah. Izuku’s pretty cool. Alphys says that I remind her of him, or he reminds her of me, or something. I hope that wasn’t a crack at me crying a lot, but...” Asriel stood up, walked over to the table, and picked up the box that Undyne and Alphys had left behind for Levi. “Time for tasty eats! Well, time for eats. I have no idea what these taste like and I don’t really care to find out.”

Asriel sat back down on the sofa, and Levi automatically crawled over, recognizing either the sight or smell of the food.

“Looks like this will work out reasonably decent for both of us. Okay. Open up.” Asriel held up a small sphere of something he couldn’t identify, but Levi’s mouth remained closed.

“...oh. So we’re doing this now.” Asriel held up the sphere, moving it back and forth in front of Levi’s face. The monster child’s eyes tracked the food, but they otherwise stood completely still. So still that when they lunged for the food, Asriel was taken totally off guard.

“OW! Ow ow ow! Sharp teeth! Let go let go let go let go-”

Asriel managed to pull his fingers out of Levi’s mouth, and barely heard them chewing on the ball of food as he inspected his paw. A few tiny holes were leaking red ichor, but they shrunk to nothing as he watched.

“Well. At least you didn’t mean it.” Asriel waited until the ichor evaporated before reaching for another ball of Levi’s food, then stared at the monster child.

“Let’s try something different this time.” A small green tendril of a vine snaked out, wrapping around the food, and snaked over to Levi. Bumping into the monster’s face caused no reaction, and Asriel raised an eyebrow.

“...are you deliberately trying to bite me, personally?”

Levi stared at the food, and when Asriel began to pull away, their mouth opened up and latched onto it like a snapping turtle. Asriel let the vine vanish instantly and watched the child chew furiously.

“Well, as long as it works.”

Another ball of food was pulled out, and the cycle repeated.

“You know… mom and dad, my mom and dad, they’re… we’re family. They’re getting older and all that. Boss Monster stuff, somebody can explain it to you when you get older. But… I’m here because Alphys, she did some experiments. And I was the result. She kind of made me, in a freak lab accident kind of way. So. I guess that makes us family. I’m your big brother. Or half brother. Step brother? Well, we’re family. That’s what matters.”

The last of the food was gobbled down, and Levi’s eyes returned to the TV screen.

“Yeah, that’s right. Priorities.” Asriel brought the empty box of food back to the table, and returned to his seat by Levi.

“...you know, uhm. I know I was a handful for my parents. And I guess I still am. Of course, they were King and Queen of the Underground. That’s a busy job. A hard job too. And then Chara showed up. And we… well, even before that screwed up plan, even before the pie incident. We were both… what’s the word? Hellions? Rapscallions? Whatever the right word is, we were it. Even if it took a while for Chara to relax enough to get to that point.”

Levi didn’t seem to be paying attention, but Asriel likewise did not seem to be paying attention to if Levi was paying attention, given that the child could not speak yet.

“I didn’t realize that humans were even more complicated when it came to taking care of them as babies. I mean, burping them, and cleaning up after they throw up, and changing diapers, and getting them vaccinated, and all that. It’s like trying to take care of a monster baby and maintain a chemical factory at the same time.”

“PAH!”

“Huh?” Asriel turned to look at Levi, then the TV screen showing a heavily muscled figure with blond hair that stuck out like antennas. “Oh. All Might. Right. It took me a while to realize that the muscle guy and the skinny guy were the same character, and not like a split personality or something. Don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“PAWUK!”

“Thanks,” Asriel replied with a grin. “I knew I could count on you.”

 

Two lightning bolts collided, causing the bulbs in the room to flicker with induced current. When the light and static faded, two human children faced each other. One was twelve years old; the other, much younger, certainly no older than three years old.

“Are you done yet?”

The younger child made a whining noise and static electricity sparked around her fingers. Frisk held up one arm and a green shield formed over it.

“You are the offspring of the two lowest energy people in town. There is no way you should be this hyper.”

The younger child made an inarticulate, angry sound and held up their hands again. Frisk braced themselves and pointed their free hand behind them. Red glowing machine parts flew from their fingertips, assembling into a massive mechanical skull with rams horns and several gears where the jaw hinge was.

“Katy, Don’t make me pull out Mr. Hyper Goner! Neither one of us wants-”

Katy stared at the massive mechanical skull, then shrieked and clapped her hands before running towards it.

“Wait, what?”

Katy’s hands passed through the magic machine several times, before the child understood that the figure was intangible. In a process that looked almost like a slow motion video of a car being crash tested, the young child’s face collapsed into an expression of disappointment and misery, and they started to cry.

“...oh. Ohhhh no. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s okay. Hold on, just gimme a second.” The shield vanished and Frisk held up their other hand. Several parts of the red skull shifted into a rainbow like swirl that stopped on green, and the skull floated over to nudge the crying child. After a few more sniffles, tiny grasping hands reached out and started to pull at the mechanical skull. It was not clear if the child was attempting to climb, disassemble, or pet it.

“...I’m sorry I yelled, Katy. I’m… I just, I didn’t… I don’t want to be Jason. Or Diane. I don’t. But. Here we are.” Frisk reached up and ran the back of one hand across their eyes. “I was trying to scare you, and even that should have been a warning sign. I didn’t even mean to… to taunt you. With something that you couldn’t have.”

The skull slowly drifted down to the floor, and Katy stuck one arm inside of one eye socket, and then jumped back as it came out of the other eye socket. Gradually the skull became more indistinct, until it vanished into motes of light. Katy watched the specks float up and disappear, then turned as she heard the sound of crying. Slowly, with a confused look on her face, Katy walked over to where Frisk was sitting on the floor, their arms over their head.

“I don’t want to be a bad kid, I don’t want to be bad, I want to be good, I want to be good, I want to be good, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...”

For a few seconds, Katy watched as the much older child cried, and then stepped forward and wrapped her arms around what parts of Frisk she could reach. Slowly, Frisk managed to calm down, eventually dropping their arms and looking over at Katy.

“Uhm… sorry. I, uh. I have issues. I’m still trying to work through them. Do you want me to bring back Mr. Hyper Goner? Or… you can’t talk yet, and I’m an idiot. Gah.” Frisk sniffed. “Let me sit here for a bit. Then we’ll find something for you to do, if you still have energy to burn off.”

 

Toriel was not dozing when the door opened. In fact, she was wide awake and straining to hear every sound, even as she tried to distract herself with the book in her lap. Still, she flinched and jumped upright the instant she heart the clicking of a key in the door.

A light flurry of snow drifted inside of the house, along with a trio of children bordering on teenagers. Two of them kicked snow off of their boots and shrugged out of jackets and coats, while the third walked right up to Toriel and wrapped their arms around her.

“Hey, mom.”

Toriel looked down at Chara, at the monster child’s body language, heard the tone of their voice, and quickly hugged back.

“I… I trust that all three of you, your babysitting endeavors went well?”

“More or less.” Frisk sighed. “Katy has way too much energy for the child of DJ Pantz and Lazy Lindsey.”

“Doge is fine. Mommy and daddy are back,” Chara mumbled into Toriel’s arm.

“Levi just watched _My Hero Academia_ the whole time, so you know. Like mother like daughter. And when we were all done, we met up at the Stop And Go and got hot chocolate.” Asriel held up and rattled an empty cup. “How was BEEEEES! The Musical?”

“Oh, it was… it was very interesting. Everyone was very pleased with the performance. I saw, or rather, I heard Undyne and Alphys, and they seemed entertained. As did Dr. Aster and Dr. Ross.”

“Huh.” Frisk managed to put their coat up on a hook and shuffled over to the sofa to sit down. “I thought for sure he was going to call me, or one of us. But I guess not every babysitter in town could win a ticket.”

 

“YOU CAN DO IT! PAW-PIE-RUSS! COME ON GARY!”

The human child sat on the sofa, staring up at the excited skeleton towering above them, and made some gibberish noises while giggling.

“perfect. Nice job kiddo.”

“SANS THAT IS NOT A FACTUAL STATEMENT! COME ON, TRY AGAIN! PAW!”

“Pah!”

“PAW!”

“Pagh!”

“PAW! PIE! RUSS!”

“Paghl!”

“a natural linguist.”

Papyrus rolled his eye lights, then looked up as the door lock rattled and a skeleton monster and a human walked into the house.

“Hello, how are you guys doing?”

“still trying to teach Gary to say Papyrus’s name. she’s getting better all the time.”

“I’ll bet.” Dr. Ross walked over and Gary automatically held up her arms to be picked up, and the child soon found herself resting in the crook of her mother’s arm. “Hey Gary, you been keeping your brothers on their toes?”

“how was the musical?”

“Confusing and amusing. Which I guess is par for the course for anything made by Ms. Rosewater. Or whatever her name is. I’m actually sort of frightened about the results of her teaming up with Ms. Gothic.” Dr. Aster pulled off his snow boots and pulled on some loafers. “So how did things go here?”

Before either skeleton brother could answer, Gary turned in her mother’s embrace, pointed at Papyrus, and…

“Papaya!”

“...SHE KNOWS MY NAME!” Papyrus held up his arms in a victory pose, magical tears streaming down his skull from his eye sockets. “THIS IS THE HAPPIEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE!”

Sans chuckled.

“Hehehe. I have the coolest brother and sister _ever_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday to me,  
> Happy Birthday to me!  
> Happy Birthday dear TimeCloneMike,  
> Happy Birthday to meeeeeeee!
> 
> And this story, in turn, is my gift to all of you. Enjoy!


End file.
